Best Bets

Unusually abundant white truffles. Plus, the right layers for fickle weather, collector’s items that fit a budget, and more.

The Best Bet
Foodies are thanking Mother Nature for a bumper crop of fragrant, subtly musky white truffles this season, the result of a particularly dry summer in Italy and Croatia. The abundant harvest means lower prices—$100 per ounce at Grace’s Marketplace (1237 Third Ave., at 71st St.; 212-737-0600), versus last year’s $300 per ounce—and longer availability. “If the good weather continues,” explains Jane Walsh of the Chefs Warehouse, which supplies many of New York’s top chefs with truffles, “we can almost guarantee that we’ll have these through
mid-January.” Which means you might finally get to find out what it would feel like to say, “Truffles again?”